‘Gotham’ or ‘Batman Without Batman’

When I heard this show was coming, I kind of groaned. The description about “Gotham” was that it’s to take place before Batman, Joker, and all the cool bad guys and gadgets. It’s “Batman Babies.” It follows young Jim Gordon and the Gotham PD around to solve crimes. Another cop procedural show, just what we need. I have this feeling that there’s some farm outside of LA somewhere, where writers just sit and churn out cop stories, then when Hollywood orders a new cop show, they just change a few names and settings, and we’re good to go. That’s how I felt about “Almost Human” but at least there were good actors, and the effects were pretty.

But I digress.

I’ll go ahead and say “possible spoilers ahead” even though nothing really happened in this first episode. The only real event that happened, is the one everyone knows – Bruce Wayne’s parents get killed. And they stuck to that. Outside of the names of Batman related characters, I’ve got a feeling they aren’t going to stick to the story lines very closely. We’ve already met Oswald Cobblepot, who will become the Penguin, but instead of the usual short, stout character we know, he’s a tall, slender guy with a limp and greasy hair. A different take, I guess. Young Catwoman is so obvious, yet so absent from this episode there’s no point in going into that really. This first one was a set up episode. As most pilots are. We meet young Jim Gordon. We know it’s him, because we hear his name mentioned about 80 bazillion times. We meet his partner Harvey Bullock, and a few other bad guys and gals.

I always give a show three episodes before I make a call on whether or not to continue. So we’ll see where this goes. I’m a big Batman fan, so I’m in for a few more eps. I just don’t know how great it’s going to be when all the fun stuff about Batman (costumed criminals, the Bat-gadgets, and Batman himself) are removed. I really wish the show took place in the 40’s. Like it did in the comics. A 1940’s Gotham PD would be pretty sweet, in my opinion. But it’s not. It’s modern day. So I wonder – Will “Gotham” just sorta leave us with another cop show, but with Batman-related names?